Monday, October 5, 2009

Being Offensive Without Offending?

This summer I was cranky a lot. Many things were making me grouchy. All this was, no doubt, exacerbated by my lack of sleep and high pain levels.

Whenever I'd think about blogging this summer the only topics that came to mind were rants...rants with the potential of offending people. Lots of people out there, in real life and on the Internet, were doing things to make me mad. (Did you know that? Or did I manage to fake you out?)

One day inspiration struck. I would blog all my rants and give full voice to all the things bugging me...but I would "bleep" out all the identifying details. I would say things like "People who BLEEP in line at the BLEEP should be BLEEPED and BLEEPED."

This revolutionary idea (hey, I was sleepless, it was revolutionary) made me so happy. A huge burden was lifted from my blogging shoulders. Finally my blog would find its true niche. (You know, like "they" all say a blogger should find..."they" being the ones who've decided their blog's true niche is telling other people how to blog.)

I went to bed that night and rehearsed my next blog post in my mind as I tried to fall asleep. I ranted and raved in my head, and mentally backspaced and inserted a BLEEP as needed. I had enough material in mind for, oh, maybe six or seven posts at least! And what were the odds that people would STOP ticking me off and deprive me of material??

The next morning, after getting a little bit of sleep, I got up and thought about blogging. But, strangely, all the desire to rant was gone. Dang! How cliched can you get?! Did I just do the blogging equivalent of the old "write the letter, tell him everything he did to hurt you, and then throw it away without mailing it" shtick? My blog fodder, my Preciiooouusssss....I wants it...

Isn't this all too Aesop? Too sticky? Too Disney happy endings and we'll just live in the sea and I'll grow gills so we can be together?? Too Celine Dion ballad-y??